Delirium wrote:
William Pietri wrote:
Right. And although the questions are endlessly complicated, I think the solution is simple. Interests are fine, especially when declared. Conflicts of interest, real or apparent, are forbidden. In practice, this means that if anybody raises a reasonable conflict-of-interest concern, especially one with a pecuniary motivation, the editor steps back and makes their suggestions on the talk page. And that we rule out obvious conflicts from the beginning, in exactly the same way the various journalistic codes of ethics I linked to do now.
My point, though, is that there are *almost always* conflicts of interest, especially with the sort of qualified editors we would most like to attract. Someone who does extensive work in CS and holds an academic job in that position has a conflict of interest when it comes to editing CS-related articles, especially any related to his area of research... but we hardly want to ban experts in CS from editing CS-related articles!
Someone who does extensive work in CS can edit the 99% of CS articles where the do not have a strong conflict of interest. I have absolutely asked passionate topic experts, no matter how qualified, to not edit on their personal pet projects. There are areas where I have strong expertise that I don't touch for the same reason: I'm a partisan.
I don't see monetary influence as being a worse sort of conflict (except for PR reasons).
Having worked both in publishing, where these conflicts of interest play out regularly, and in Silicon Valley startups, where PR is a necessary fact of life, I believe it is a much stronger conflict. Academics and journalists both have reputations to lose. PR people and other commercial writers don't, not like academics.
Journalistic and academic reputations are built on the factual quality and accuracy of one's work. There are extensive vetting and enforcement mechanisms in both industries. People in PR and advertising build reputation on their ability to work without regard to factual accuracy, or in spite of it. They are professional POV warriors. We adopt their funding models at our peril.
William